Private You Could Have Anyone

[Elle Mors]

LITTLE DID I KNOW​

Like every moment in the netherworld that had preceded this, the past bore very little weight on her conscience - the immediate past, anyway. A kaleidoscope of the distant past wrapped itself around Sylvia Virtos as they stood near the foot of a hypergate leading back into the world she'd came here from, from the the reality that Elle had left behind when she'd died. Countless faces of different stages of life stared back at her, looked confusedly into the green eyes that were strained with tears that simply weren't coming - death sort of did that to you. The side of her face, where a stretch of muscle along her cheek would have been, twitched to mimic the way skin would if she was still living, when she tried to smile. This was a moment she always knew was going to come, the reason she'd tried to shy away from her before she let herself choose to be selfish.

"I don't want this to be goodbye."

There was a minor shake that was centered in her chest, like she was getting ready to cry, but she forced herself to try to maintain what little composure she had. Death had always been a certainty for her, whether it had been in the future that the Sith had wanted for her as a foot soldier, or the life of a Jedi seeking out the dark side to weed it out where it grew nearest its roots. Life never was going to be kind to the people like her, like the two of them, as long as time still flowed on. This moment, this vision, too, was one she had known was coming for years now - just another nightmare then that had turned into reality now. The why, then when, and especially the how were never clear, nor the circumstances around what she'd seen then and was seeing now - a product of her mind with the stress she was feeling, certainly, with contribution from her memories of the best and worst times of her life.

Resurrection was something the spacer probably had in mind, but it was something neither of them - Elle assumed - knew how to accomplish in a manner that was acceptable to her. People did crazy things for the people they cared about, and the dark side could be a convincing temptation when life and death were concerned in regards to the people they loved, but there wasn't a shred of that sort of shadow in her anymore, there hadn't been in a long time. Sylvia had been the first crush for her, the first rival - real rival - she'd never wanted, and both first and last kiss. First friend, first girlfriend even, but also the last for all of those as well - and not because they had ended up together. They were standing in the middle of the literal afterlife, after all.

And, well, Elle was very much dead.

Still, she'd died trying to bring down a Sith with her - and failed. Her entire reason for pulling off that desperate act, for throwing everything away, was standing right in front of her. Despite literally dying, willingly for her sake, Sylvia had still ended up with the shorter end of the stick than her. Here there was peace, in a manner of speaking, but she'd left behind the most important person she'd ever known in a place that was anything but, with a life that was worse off than it was before Ellie had came back into it. More importantly, the two had just admitted to themselves and each other that they had loved each other - then she went and moved entire realities away with almost no chance of reuniting until mortality caught up with Sylvia. Almost no chance until this ordeal, that is. A second chance, even if she didn't know how to take it, was here, somewhere, and she just needed to use it.

She just didn't know how.

"You have to keep living your life, though." She conceded after what was probably the worst pause she could have taken, a moment that felt like minutes but was hardly the span of time it took to breathe. "I want to go with you, but.." The words she was going to say were caught in her throat as she trailed off, unwilling to speak what was in her head in fear it'd become reality. She eyed the warped image of the other side of the gate, distorted by the portal that bridged the two sides. She could plausibly just waltz on through, step out from where she was now and back into a galaxy that was so far away now, but what would happen to her was simply an unknown at this point.

What did she have left to lose though?

 

[Sylvia Virtos]

But I only want you
Let Me Go
Elle Mors

---

​

Momentary silence.

Sylvia looked into the gate, wondering why she had only realized her shortcomings now. She had followed the visions, and one by one they had come to pass, but the last had come and gone already. Not a flash of the two standing on the other side of that gate, properly reunited. Suddenly, that gate was not the sight of relief she thought it was going to be. It only would have been if she was sure she could actually step through with Elle by her side, but that confidence now wavered as they faced the barrier that could still keep them apart for the rest of Sylvia's days. The prospect of this moment being their last together was a burden too heavy to bear. To be so resolute only to falter at the final step; today it would either be cemented as Sylvia's fatal flaw or the greatest obstacle she had ever overcome.

"I don't want it to be either."

The spacer looked down to her feet for a moment, then back up and to the amazing woman beside her. Elle looked like she was crying, but she shed no tears. Sylvia herself felt her own beginning to well up, but with balled-up, gauntleted fists she fought them back. It was not over, not until the two were truly apart. She had promised herself she was only returning to the realm of the living with Elle by her side, and it had to happen. The Force simply could not be this cruel.

A trembling lip betrayed her feelings, yet Sylvia continued to steel herself as much as she could. Elle told her to keep living her life, words unspoken implicitly saying to return to a life without the woman she had fallen in love with. To return to a life where she had nothing but herself left. She would survive, but to let things end like this would forever weigh her down. She would not just give up here.

She could not.

"I want to go with you, but..."

Silence, again. It was now or never. They had to try something, consequences be damned. If she ended up stuck here with Elle, she would take it over living the rest of her life too hurt to ever care about another again. As real as that fear was, Sylvia still scolded herself for how dramatic it was.

Rational thought did not guide her next action. Whether it was a spur-of-the-moment move without any guiding reason or the Force leading her to do it, she did not know, but it mattered little now. Setting down the helmet she carried with her on the ground beside her, she removed the left gauntlet from her armor to reveal her hand underneath. She looked at it for a moment, then held it out towards Elle to take it in hers.

"No buts. Come on, I will pull you through. Come with me."

Somehow, the words sounded confident. In reality, she had no idea if it made any kind of a difference. Even if it did, there was no guarantee the result would be what they wanted. All she knew was that they were not meant to be apart yet, even if that seemed impossible to prevent.

What else was there to try, though?

 

[Elle Mors]

Fear, uncertainty, and anxiety.

She'd bottled them up and tightened the lid on those feelings for as long as she could remember. It was why she had clung so heavily to someone like Sylvia, someone who was stronger than she was in a way that mattered much more to her than something as temporary as physicality. Everything was rigid for her, set in stone - from the moment she'd found herself surrounded by Sith Elle had known she was never going to be one of them, despite every single bit of effort she put into being the top of her class whenever possible. I'm smaller than this and I can't change it were common words that had flung themselves around her head, even when she had tried her best to shine the brightest - and now, as if validating all of the overwhelming pressure she'd simply acquiesced to in the past, she was dead as a result of the consequences of her own efforts to go against the grain.

And Sylvia Virtos was telling her not to give up.

Elle, for her part, smiled; this was the person that had captured her attention from the moment they met, and this was the kind of strength she had always wanted. It'd been compensated by a titanic effort to be strong in every superficial sense of the word, but Sylvia had somehow managed to make her feel secure with just encouragement - maybe Elle had accomplished something similar, but she always assumed it was through her actions that she'd been inspiring while the girl holding her hand out for her now was just inspiring by living. "Okay." She said simply, deciding not to concern herself with questions of what if? and what the ramifications of her decisions might be. She reached out, for the first time feeling like she wasn't carrying her entire world on her shoulders, and stepped forwards.

"Together." Ellie said, frazzled but determined.

 

[Sylvia Virtos]

Strength Unknown
Elle Mors

---

​

This was the moment where incredible pressure was placed on Sylvia. A clear, unburdened 'okay' and the joining of hands symbolized Elle's trust in her. Now it was on her to prove that the blonde's trust was justified. After living her entire life avoiding the responsibility of having people depend on her, Sylvia now willingly shouldered a weight unlike anything she had ever felt. There was nothing that could prove her claim, yet Elle had taken her hand without question. The fear of letting her down here gripped Sylvia tight, but there was no backing out now.

"Together."

"That's how we'll make it."

She wasn't alone.

One step taken by Elle was met by two by Sylvia. One more step separated her from the hypergate. A sliver of doubt in the back of her mind made her look away from it, only to find herself looking at Elle instead. For a moment, all Sylvia could look at was her smile. Perhaps the magenta-haired girl would never understand what Elle had ever seen in her, but this was the moment to repay her for everything she had done for her. To make a start, at the very least.

A deep breath in. Closed eyes.

Sylvia's senses honed in on the Force. Within it, she embraced Elle's presence, allowing it to connect with her own through the bond they shared. Whether it would make a difference or not mattered little to her. If nothing else, it was comforting. The fear was still there, but it allowed her to act in spite of it.

A deep breath out. Opened eyes.

Her gaze was back on the hypergate. As tempting as it was to have one more look at Elle, she had to be confident that this was not the end. Never had she trusted in the Force before, but if Elle could do it, then perhaps she herself as well.

Here goes nothing.

Sylvia took the step forward and into the hypergate. She tightly held onto Elle's hand as she journeyed back into the realm of the living, hoping her own connection to life could feed into Elle through their bond. It was under no pretense that she understood what she was trying to do, or if it was even possible, but somehow it made sense to her.

All she could hope for now was that Elle had been able to pass through too.

 

[Elle Mors]

FIGHTING FOR ME​

There weren't words to describe the moment as it came to a close, as things seemed to end. It was like dying all over again, something that had been astoundingly painless, to see Sylvia Virtos step over to the other side - to feel her fingers push against the boundaries between the living and the dead, to feel the give. She'd always trusted in the force, in the idea that whatever would happen was simply something meant to be, but now she found herself putting all of her trust in the woman whose hand she found her own held by, pulled by. It wasn't that her faith in the will of the force had wavered, but her muted sense of trust in the capabilities, in her ability to trust in someone else, had grown so much that it wasn't just the force that was responsible for how things were going to go anymore.

Their fingers slipped away from each other as the two tried to make their crossing, ominously as Elle tried to follow her through, and for a moment it appeared that her fears had been realized - only for her to slip through after all, though she wasn't certain how any of it worked. For Sylvia there likely wasn't a delay in her arrival on the other side, some strange quirk of space and time that paradoxically allowed Ellie to step out onto the other side without any measurable amount of time having gone by than what would have been expected by the minor distance that had occupied the space between the two of them, but for the Jedi there was a wave of light that washed over her - some light that she both could not see beyond and understand. She could have interpreted it as any number of things, but without understanding she decided to choose not to. It spoke to her, not through words but through feelings - emotion - and it calmed her when she began to panic, began to think she'd been intervened upon by the force itself.

Then she saw color again, saw the world on the other side of that gate, but none of that mattered more to her than the person she saw at the center of her field of view.

A small hand reached out for the one that had slipped from its grasp before, feet already in motion, and she leaned in to let her lips pressing against Sylv's speak for her, knowing that words never could have done justice to the miracle she'd experienced - for the second chance she'd been given both literally and figuratively. Her fingers pushed into the gaps between the spacer's, palm pressed against palm, and she lifted their hand out to the side while her other hand, arm, reached to curve around her back to give herself support. Her lips audibly separated from Sylv's for just a moment to speak, their faces hardly a hair's breadth from the other. "I love you so much, Sylv." She said, her voice turning hoarse as her cheeks flushed with color and her eyes strained to hold back tears of emotion.

 

[Sylvia Virtos]

Bloom
Elle Mors

---

​

The hand slipping away from hers caused Sylvia's heart to drop. That one moment not longer than a fraction of a second between the perceived loss and her stepping back into the light had felt like an eternity. Convinced she had failed for that mere flash of existence was enough to send waves of panic through her system, she thought her worst nightmares were coming to pass.

And then she felt that same hand taking hold of hers again. The Force had heard her pleas.

With a sharp breath, Sylvia quickly turned around. It was only because of the kiss planted on her lips before her mind could even register what she was seeing that her mouth had not fallen open. What it did do, however, was pull her eyes wide open and draw a single tear from both. In the end, Elle had made it through. The only prayer she had ever made to the Force had been answered. She was here. Alive. Trembling knees made it hard to stand, but she managed to keep both herself and Elle up straight.

Eyes filled with utter disbelief stared into Elle's as their faces were as close to each other as they could have been without touching. The sight summoned the brightest smile she had ever shown. The blonde's words elicited a light-aired scoff, filled with elation, disbelief and relief all at once. "And I love you. I love you, Ellie," she responded with the few words she could get out of her throat before planting a kiss on Elle's lips herself. After pulling away, her arms wrapped around Elle and her head was placed on the blonde's shoulder, creating a tight embrace. "I missed you so much."

For a few moments, Sylvia fell silent again to simply take in the sensation she felt while embracing the girl she loved. The first sound that came from her at the end of that spell was a sigh of relief.

"It worked. It actually worked, you're alive," Sylvia muttered in an attempt to shake the disbelief that still clung to her. "Thank you. For believing in me."

Losing Elle had been unbearable before, and this time had been even worse, but the reunion was equally more cathartic too. Everything felt right, again.

"We made it," she spoke with an exhausted, yet light-hearted voice. Then, suddenly, she was reminded of the fact that Elle had been dead only moments ago. She would have let go to look at the blonde before asking her anything, but the embrace was too comforting to break it off just yet.

"How are you feeling? Anything I can do for you?"

 

[Elle Mors]

She didn't understand what exactly had happened, or how it was that she was in the state she found herself in, but she didn't care much, either. She was alive, and she was with Sylvia Virtos . In the end, really, that was what mattered to her - more than the overarching fight of dark and light, right and wrong, a little piece of her had always been ready to be content with just having her, if she could, and the fight in her had only ever managed to grow when they'd stopped being friends and pushed each other away. What had once seemed out of reach, an impossibility even, was now certain.

"I should be thanking you." She answered quietly, the small specks of tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes blurring her vision and making it difficult to keep them open. Neither of them really could have anticipated the turn of events that started with Elle dying to bury Sylvia's captor in order to buy her time to escape, something she apparently hadn't managed to properly do and it had made it all in vain - certainly not with an ending that saw Sylvia breaking out of her shell and moving heaven and earth, literally, to save her.

"You saved me."

She meant it several ways - both in the literal sense, but she was voicing her views on what had caused her to cultivate her sense of empathy, her compassion, in her youth. It wasn't that she'd always been on this path, Sylv had been the turning point that caused her future to diverge from the one planned for her. "I feel.. tired... but I am, well, more than fine. All I need.. needed.. was you, and you're here." She said. It felt a little over the top, but it was true. "I just want to go home and rest, with you."

Home, of course, was really wherever she could lay her head, but it was also where her heart is - and her heart was with Sylv.

 

[Sylvia Virtos]

Elle Mors

---

​

"I should be thanking you."

There was no vocal response, simply because Sylvia had none. Not for a second during her efforts to make this very moment happen had she truly stopped to think of everything that could have happened to her on that perilous journey, including the loss of her own life. It had simply felt like a given, that regardless of the outcome she was to give everything she had to make things right. Being together again was her only goal, so she could then be there for Elle like she had failed to do years ago. The gratitude given to her came completely unexpected.

Instead, Sylvia lifted her head from Elle's shoulder and pulled back slightly, planting another kiss on her lips. Even if she struggled to accept the fact she had indeed saved Elle, simply sharing this moment was a lot easier.

"Good thing I took my freighter here, then," Sylvia replied equally as quietly. The ship was more of a home to her than any other place. Especially after how Carnifex had found and captured her, she did not feel comfortable staying in one place for too long. While it was far from the largest, it was spacious enough to house her things. With its modifications, it was a proper ship to live out of.

"Now that you mention it, though, I'm pretty knackered myself," she confessed as she pivoted to Elle's side, wrapping an arm around her for support. She was not risking Elle collapsing after she had just said she was tired. Returning to the realm of the living was surely an exhausting experience. "I parked it not too far from here, to keep it out of sight. It's that way."

With small, careful steps, Sylvia guided Elle towards the direction she remembered coming from when she first came here. "Hey, Ellie..."

It felt like it was a fair time to ask, even if the exact timing was perhaps a little odd.

"Can I call you my girlfriend now?"